Vaughan confident of T20 event

NZ Cricket head Justin Vaughan is confident that a T20 tournament involving franchises from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa can start by 2011.

The three countries have been in talks about setting up an Indian Premier League-style competition in the southern hemisphere.

The main obstacle is the crowded international calendar and finding a window when leading players from all three countries and around the world are available.

But Vaughan believes that if these hurdle can be overcome, the new southern premier league could begin in late 2011.

"We started planning it last winter so we've had a project team on this for a little period of time now," Vaughan revealed.

"It's fair to say it would be in the back end of 2011 so we've still got two-and-a-half years really."

"As long as we can get these scheduling issues sorted out then I've got no hesitation in saying it can get up and running by then."

"A venture like this will only work if we get the best players from the three countries plus also hopefully the best players from around the world able to participate, like we see in the IPL, and to be able to create a little gap in the international schedule to be able to do that from 2011. That's something that we're working on at the moment," Vaughan told Radio Sport.

The plan is for eight franchises based at yet to be determined locations with "an even scattering" of players from the three countries.

Franchises will be able to buy the rights to participate in the southern premier league which will be financially underpinned by the sale of broadcasting rights - similar to the Super 14 rugby union competition involving teams from the same countries.

"Cricket is an unusual game in that it's probably the only professional sports code that I can think of that doesn't have a lot of professional club based competitions that are financially viable or financially profitable," Vaughan added.

"If you look at any other sport, it is the club based competitions that are the cornerstone of those codes."

"We don't want to move away from international cricket being the absolute pinnacle and the one that drives the resources that flow into our grass roots, but I think we do have to be realistic and understand that cricket is overdue some club based competition."

Despite the push for yet another Twenty20 competition, Vaughan insisted that New Zealand Cricket remained dedicated to maintaining Test cricket.

"It's the purest form of the game and should still be seen as the pinnacle of the sport," he insisted.

"The trick for cricket is to be able to balance these very different variants of the game.

"At the moment Twenty20 is running hot. In one sense that is really good because it's creating a whole new legion of supporters for the game and it's introducing a lot of new people to cricket and it's being able to expand cricket into many more countries around the world. But we do have to be careful that it doesn't overwhelm the other forms of the game."